1. Field
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of online multimedia content; and more specifically, to available multimedia content from multiple unrelated multimedia websites for delivery for playback on a client device.
2. Background
The Internet is becoming a primary method for distributing multimedia content (e.g., video, audio, etc) to end users. It is currently possible to download or stream music, video, games, and other multimedia content to computers, cell phones, and virtually any network capable device.
Conventionally, a user desiring to play multimedia content over the Internet will typically browse the web by individually visiting one multimedia website to find which multimedia content the user wishes to play. For example, one user may type in a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of a content provider's website, such as http://www.xyzcom, to browse the multimedia content that is available at the individual website. However, sometimes a user does not know which content provider actually owns the multimedia content, thus requiring the user to possibly visit multiple multimedia websites to find the desired multimedia content. Also, if the user only visits one multimedia website, the user will be limited to only the multimedia content that is available on that particular website. Alternatively, a user may type in a search term into a search engine in order to find the content, but such searches may return various results, requiring the user to individually visit multiple websites to find the desired content. In general, viewing multimedia content using conventional methods requires the user to navigate through multiple websites and multiple webpages of these websites to find the desired multimedia content. As such, these conventional methods require the user to be knowledgeable about how to navigate each of these websites to find the desired multimedia content, since these multimedia websites are possibly operated by different entities and have entirely different websites. Also, these conventional methods required the user to have different media players to playback the desired multimedia content. For example, one multimedia website may require a user to download a proprietary media player to play the multimedia content from the one website, and another website may require a completely different media player to play multimedia content from the other website. Also, using these conventional methods it is difficult for the user to stay aware of newly available multimedia content, because the user would have to return to the multimedia website and manually determine whether there is newly available content. Not only may each of these multimedia websites have different user interfaces, the viewing experience using these conventional methods is not optimized for ‘living-room’ viewing, where a user is sitting on a couch away from the computer. Although the number of people playing multimedia content at their computers has increased, many users do not use the Internet for playing multimedia content due to the difficulty of finding the desired multimedia content at various locations, the differences between user interfaces, and because they have to be sitting at their computer to navigate through the various webpages, as described above.
In an attempt to overcome some of the problems discussed above, another method for multimedia content delivery may aggregate multimedia content from various content providers into a single multimedia website by purchasing the multimedia content from various content providers. These types of websites are sometimes referred to as content aggregation sites or content portals that offer online video services. These types of web sites employ a portal strategy, in that each of these sites requires the user to search for available multimedia content within their own website, although some of the content may be from various content providers. Using the portal strategy, the available multimedia content is limited to the licensed multimedia content purchased by the content aggregation site. This may be a limiting factor for a user wishing to play multimedia content that has not been purchased by the particular content aggregation site, but is otherwise available on another multimedia website.
These types of content aggregation sites charge content owners high fees and the content owners generally lose control of the user experience. These content aggregation sites are often in direct competition with the content owners own multimedia website. Also, since content owners lose control of the user experience, the content owners may loss revenue generating opportunities with advertisements and promotions. Moreover, by selling the multimedia content to the content aggregation sites, the content owners may not be building viewership on its own website.